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June 13, 2019Dream Casting Frying Plantain
I know, it's super brave of me to make a post right after the Raptors won the championship (!!!!) but I'm going to do it anyway. The other day I did a talk at the Toronto Public Library (the Annette branch) ...
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June 24, 2019Advice From Mentors Past
One of the most surprising things I’ve encountered since starting to talk publicly about my writing and my first book is how many people appreciate the fact that I mention the positive influence of ...
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September 08, 2020Picture Book Magic
People are often surprised to learn that a picture book begins with the words. But every children’s book editor I’ve met has preferred to read a picture-book manuscript without any images. A good ...
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June 11, 2019Confessions of an Uncertain Booklover
All my life, I’ve considered myself to be a booklover. Even my twitter handle has the word ‘literati’ in it (don’t judge me. I was a pretentious undergrad when I came up with it). English was ...
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June 03, 2019I Promise You, It's Fiction.
Full disclosure, I had another post planned to kick off my Writer in Residency here on Open Book but I decided to change topics after seeing a write-up/review of my forthcoming short story collection. ...
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April 14, 2021Ross Breithaupt on Weaving Together Music, Mourning, and the Gritty Reality of Tree Planting in His Moving First Novel
Anyone who's ever tried their hand at tree-planting in Canada knows it's an intense undertaking. For 20-year old Rory Fleck, the intensity is just what he's looking for—a place to forget himself and ...
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April 23, 2025Danny Jacob's Debut Novel is a Genre-Bending Gothic Fairy Tale
Poet and essayist Danny Jacobs is featured on Open Book today, and this time for his exciting debut novel, The Ignis Psalter (Gordon Hill Press/The Porcupine's Quill). In a multigenerational tale about ...
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May 07, 2026Story Sparks & Surprises: An Interview with Heather Beaumont, author of WHEN WE GO HOME
A trip that initially doesn’t quite feel like a homecoming slowly begins to evolve in When We Go Home (Kids Can Press), a story about what it means to belong in more than one place.Marlee isn’t convinced ...
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June 16, 2019Always A Blank Page Waiting
I remember the first time I heard a writer admit that she hated writing. It was 2011, on a panel during the Summer Writing School facilitated by the Creative Writing program at UofT’s School of Continuing ...
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August 23, 2018"I am Story": Getting to know GG Nominee Harold R. Johnson, Author of a Stunning, Genre-Defying New Memoir
Governor General’s Literary Award nominee Harold R. Johnson's newest book combines his expertise in fiction and non-fiction, in a genre-blending work that is being hailed as the crown jewel of an already ...
